one of the main female characters being turned into a s*x doll, which was a Herculean effort, mind you

got defeated in one punch after finally establishing some credibility and gaining some recognition.

A s*x doll. I made myself ignore the s*x doll only to get slapped in the face for my naïveté, my childish hope, my belief in there being some good in this cruel world.

Et tu, Yama Rising?

At the beginning of the story, Qin Ye is someone who spends his time in the shadows due to his immortality, he does not cultivate much; staying lowkey helped him survive. You can see that he is smart and a little crafty. As the story progresses, he starts running away less and choosing to face things head on due to his feelings of belonging to hell and its citizens.

The author also pays attention to details that most novels might gloss over in kingdom building, for example, when Qin Ye had to start circulating money in hell, his team had no knowledge about the type of special paper needed so that the notes won't get worn out from so many people touching them. Other novels might talk about anti-forging methods but I think not many mention the type of paper used to print money, which are national secrets.

The main character is relatable in the sense that he is not overpowered/ all-knowing, for example, he was unable to draft out city plans because it is so complicated (building structure, roads, electricity lines, sewage system etc) and needed the help of professionals. The villains are also fleshed out with their own goals and motives.

In the beginning, as other reviews have already mentioned, there is emphasis on China's hell being the best. I think it's quite normal for authors to want their countries to be the best (seen in many Korean novels) so I'm fine with that. Wanting to conquer Japan can be attributed to past grudges from the Japanese occupation.

However, as we progress further into the novel it becomes obvious that the author was constantly taking jabs at current events. Examples: Taiwan's hell is mentioned as resisting reunification and spending on the military, referring to their current conflict with the mainland. Then there was a line: [For instance, whenever Usonia wanted to secure a greater measure of benefit for themselves, they would always fire off a round of sanctions and brandish their military might to the world....]
This is obviously talking about the US sanctions in the US-China trade war which was actually also mentioned in the novel. However, these were usually one-liners across every couple of chapters so I overlooked it.

The last straw was the feudal lords arc, an important part of the novel's plot, alluding to the South and East China Seas conflict. In general, the ones who oppose Qin Ye, 'ingrates', are the countries disputing the seas or having tensions with China (Korea, some SEA states etc), the neutral, 'opportunists', feudal lords are the countries who are mediators with neutral stances in the actual conflicts (Singapore and Malaysia) and then the rest who side with him are China's political allies (eg Laos supported China's HK security law). At this point of time, I realised that this was way too much of a coincidence and it seems like the author has purposely grouped them this way.

Like, what Qin Ye feels about the different feudal lords would have originally just been how the MC views people who oppose him (which I would be totally fine with) but now all I see is a biased view of countries not supporting China in the South and East China Seas disputes.

the MC thinks that emissaries of hell of other countries trying to steal talents from Cathay's underworld deserve death but I honestly don't think he would be against stealing THEIR talents for his hell